Steinberg Nuendo 3 Networking Manual

							 
Networking 
						

							 
Original Manual by Synkron.
Revision and Quality Control for Nuendo 3: 
Ashley Shepherd, Cristina Bachmann, Heiko Bischoff, Sabine Pfeifer, Claudia Schomburg
The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent 
a commitment on the part of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. The software described 
by this document is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to other media 
except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this publication may be 
copied, reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior 
written permission by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.
All product and company names are ™ or ® trademarks of their respective owners.  Windows 
XP is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. The Mac logo is a trademark used under license. 
Macintosh and Power Macintosh are registered trademarks.
© Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, 2004. 
All rights reserved. 
						

							 
NUENDO
Networking 3 
Table of Contents
 
4Introduction
4What can I use the Networking functions for?
5About the technology
5Considerations for Internet use
7Getting started - selecting a user name and basic procedure
9Selecting a user name - alternative method
10Setting up a network
10Setting up LAN connections
11Setting up WAN connections
13Updating the network information
14Verify Communication
15Transfer Status
16Sharing projects
16Creating a permission preset
20Setting up users and permissions manually
25Loading a permission preset
26Sharing a project
27Deactivating a shared project
29About the project folder
29Where to put large media files
30Joining projects
32Disconnecting from projects
33Working with shared projects
35Committing changes
36Loading changes
37Locking tracks
38About network communication problems
39Chatting with Other Users on the Network
40The Network dialogs
40The Project Sharing and Permissions dialog
41The Shared Projects dialog
44The User Manager dialog
45Index 
						

							 
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4 Networking 
Introduction
 
This document describes how you can use Nuendo’s networking tech-
nology to collaborate with other users of Nuendo in a peer-to-peer net-
work.
The “owner” of a project can share it with any number of users via LAN 
(Local Area Network) connections and/or WAN (Wide Area Network) 
connections via standard network protocols.
This allows several separate users to work on a project simultaneously 
and coordinate their efforts, as well as exchange ideas and sugges-
tions.
Using Nuendo to collaborate in a network requires that: 
• All users have a version of Nuendo that supports the networking technology.
• All the users’ computers are either connected via a LAN, or can be connected 
via the Internet through IP addresses.
 
What can I use the Networking functions for?
 
The networking technology in Nuendo allows collaboration with, and 
exchange of, MIDI, video and audio data – i.e. it is possible to exchange 
and edit MIDI, video and audio only. As of this writing, it is not possible 
to exchange any mixer settings, although it may be in future releases.
Even though the networking technology allows for collaboration via 
WAN connections over the Internet, it is primarily designed for use in 
a LAN workgroup.
If you intend to use it for collaboration over the Internet, bear in mind 
that communication is considerably slower over the Internet, and that 
there are also other factors (such as security issues and firewall prob-
lems) involved which can complicate matters (see below). 
						

							 
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Networking 5 
About the technology
 
In addition to TCP/IP, the Nuendo networking technology uses the 
standard network protocol UDP (User Datagram Protocol - primarily 
used to broadcast messages over a network).
Since the technology uses the standard protocols and calls of the op-
erating system, no special hardware or drivers are required to use it, 
aside from a working NIC card.
Nuendo uses three ports in your system for establishing communica-
tion, broadcasting messages and transferring data between users: 
UDP port 6990, TCP port 6991 and TCP port 6992. These ports 
need to be open for network communication to be possible. 
Considerations for Internet use
 
As previously mentioned, the Nuendo networking technology is de-
signed mainly for use in local area networks, but it is also possible to 
use it over the Internet.
If you intend to use it for collaborating with other users over the Inter-
net however, there are a few things to keep in mind and some system 
settings you may need to make:  
•  
If a network is to be created with any users connected via the Internet, 
all users need to know the respective IP addresses of the other com-
puters in the network, and use these to establish the connection. 
See page 11 for details about how to use the IP address of a computer to establish 
network communication with it in Nuendo.
 
There may also be issues that need to be resolved regarding firewalls 
and/or computers connected to the Internet via private subnets. If a 
computer is protected by a firewall or is in a subnet, the user may 
need to perform the actions described below. 
						

							 
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6 Networking 
If your computer is behind a firewall
 
In a LAN, Nuendo uses the UDP port 6990 to establish communication 
with the other computers. Over the Internet however, Nuendo does not 
use this port. Instead, connection and communication is established 
and handled via TCP/IP messages sent to the TCP ports 6991 and 
6992.
This means that the TCP ports 6991 and 6992 must be open on all 
computers. Firewalls may block messages to these ports, thus making 
connection impossible. Consult the documentation for your firewall 
(or operating system) for information about how to open ports – or 
contact your network administrator. 
If your computer is in a subnet that uses NAT
 
If your computer resides in a subnet that uses NAT (Network Address 
Translation), all computers in the subnet share the same external IP 
address, while the individual computers in the subnet have internal IP 
addresses.
In this case, you must set up a port mapping from the external ports 
6991 and 6992 to your internal ports 6991 and 6992 - i.e. the actual 
ports on your computer, as opposed to the ports of the subnet. 
If computers are in different NAT subnets
 
If you want to collaborate with users whose computers reside in differ-
ent subnets that use NAT (as described above), it might be a good so-
lution to set up a VPN (Virtual Private Network). A VPN allows secure 
communication between networks, using the Internet for transferring 
data.
It is beyond the scope of this document to go into any details on how 
to set up a VPN, but make sure that your VPN will act as a single net-
work and that it has ports 6991, 6992 and, if possible, 6990 open. 
						

							 
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Networking 7 
Getting started - selecting a user name and 
basic procedure
 
The following is a quick summary of how to use Nuendo’s networking 
technology - how to enter a user name, and the basic procedure for 
sharing a project with other users. In other words it’s a quick guide for 
quickly getting down to business and sharing a project, but you will 
probably want and need to read the rest of this 
document as well for 
more in-depth descriptions of procedures and functions.
When you have made the preparations described above so your com-
puter meets the criteria for communicating with other computers, this 
is how you quickly go about establishing network communication and 
share a project with others:  
1.  
Launch Nuendo.  
2.  
Activate the network by pulling down the Network menu and checking 
the “Active” item.
 
This establishes network communication and introduces your computer to any com-
puters already present in the network. Your computer now needs to have a unique ID 
for identification (see below). 
						

							 
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8 Networking 
3. 
At this point, a dialog opens asking whether you want to enter a 
unique user name to identify your computer in the network. 
This is the name that will be displayed in all the network dialogs to identify you to the 
other users in a network.
 
• Each user in a network 
 
must
 
 specify a user name, or network name, in 
order to be identified in the network. However, you don’t have to do this 
now, since you can do it at a later time if you wish (see page 9).
 
4. 
Click “Yes” if you want to enter your user name. If you don’t want to 
enter a user name at this point, click “No”. 
If you click “Yes”, another dialog opens in which you can enter your user name.
 
5. 
Click in the text box, type in a name of your choice and click “OK”. 
If the network has already been created, the original creator - or administrator - may 
have already decided on user names for all participants. If so, ask the administrator if a 
name already exists for you and enter that. See page 16 for more information about se-
lecting user names for other participants.
 
• If a name you enter is already in use for another computer in the net-
work, you will be prompted to select another name.
 
6. 
When you have entered a user name, load or create a project that you 
want to share with the other users. 
7. 
Open the “Project Sharing and Permissions” dialog from the Network 
menu and activate the “Share Project” option. 
The project is now shared and all other users have full access to it. See page 16 for 
more details about sharing projects and what you can do in this dialog. 
						

							 
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Networking 9 
Now everyone can collaborate on the project, contribute new tracks, 
edit existing data and commit the changes to the other users.
The above procedure is a short and sweet summary of the basic usage, 
but the Nuendo networking technology offers far more options. For in-
stance, you can specify which users in a network should have access 
to a project, whether they should have complete access or only partial 
access, and much more.
On the following pages we will also describe how to join projects 
shared by others, and describe in detail how you go about working 
with shared projects.
 
Selecting a user name - alternative method
 
As previously stated, each user in a network needs to specify a unique 
user name, or network name, in order to be identified in the network.
If you didn’t specify a user name with the method described above, or 
if you need to change it, you can do the following: 
1. 
If it’s not already running, launch Nuendo. 
2. 
Open either the User Manager dialog or the Shared Projects dialog 
from the Network menu. 
In the top left corner of both dialogs you will find a Network Name text box.
Entering a network name in the User Manager dialog…
…and in the Shared Projects dialog. 
						

							 
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10 Networking 
3. 
Click in the text box, type in a name of your choice and press [Return]. 
This is the name that will be displayed in all the network dialogs to identify you to the 
other users in a network.
 
Note that the following user names are reserved and can’t be used: 
 
“Guest”, “Administrator”, “Admin” and “Anonymous”.
 
Once you have entered a user name and this has been established in 
the network, it shouldn’t be changed unless absolutely necessary! To 
use an analogy, this is similar to registering for an Internet service or 
discussion forum – once you have registered under a specific name, 
you can’t log in under another name, unless you create a new account.
 
Setting up a network
 
The following is a description of how to set up a network with both 
LAN and WAN connections. 
• For LAN connections, all computers must be part of the same network and 
communicate properly.
•
For WAN connections, all computers must have a working Internet connection 
and a public IP address.
 
If your intended network meets these criteria, follow the procedures 
described below to set things up. 
Setting up LAN connections
 
If you want to connect to other users via a LAN, you only have to make 
sure all computers actually use the same LAN, that they are communi-
cating properly via the TCP/IP protocol, and that you have activated 
the network by checking the “Active” item on the Network menu (see 
below). If the computers are unable to communicate, contact your net-
work administrator, or consult the network documentation for your op-
erating system.